FirstCry on a hiring spree in an offline push; to have 200 stores by mid 2016

The Pune-based retailer, which operates through a franchisee based business model, has doubled its headcount to about 800 in the past six months.Payal Ganguly | ET Bureau | September 21, 2015, 11:26 IST

The Pune-based retailer, which operates through a franchisee based business model, has doubled its headcount to about 800 in the past six months.HYDERABAD: FirstCry is on a hiring spree to increase the number of its stores to 200 by the middle of next year from 125 at present as the omnichannelbaby care products retailer looks to strengthen its offline presence.

The Pune-based retailer, which operates through a franchisee based business model, has doubled its headcount to about 800 in the past six months.

“We have been hiring for tech and product verticals. Recently we have onboarded Amitabh Sadasiv, former regional manager at Raymond, as the national stores operations manager to manage our franchised stores and for standardisation,“ said Supam Maheshwari, founder and CEO of FirstCry .

He said the company has been looking for senior managers for the technology team, product manager and someone to head its hospital initiative, where a new mother at partner hospitals is gifted a hamper by FirstCry .

The break even for each store de pends on the fran chisee quality and store location, said Maheshwari. "It typically takes 15 to 36 months for a store to break even and we are trying to standardise the experience across our stores and improve the output per square foot of the store," he said.

According to a report by market research and advisory company Technavio, baby care products market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 17% between 2014 and 2019.

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